


Operation: Apotheosis

by AetherAria



Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: (i love warning for that), F/M, Gen, Minor Injuries, Peril, also i don't know if this is going to go down the otp or ot3 path we'll ahve to just wait and see :D
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a battle with Metro Man goes awry, Megamind is direly hurt, prompting Minion to take a good long look at his responsibility to his ward. Bad guys don't win, don't get the girl, don't get happy endings- so how can Minion keep him safe in the face of inevitable and continuous failure? It would take something drastic to make Megamind reconsider his destiny. Something as drastic, say, as realizing that maybe it isn't so impossible for him to get the girl after all...</p><p>An earlier version of this fic was posted on tumblr as part of the Advent of Evil during the holiday season 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation: Apotheosis

**Author's Note:**

> Summaries are hard, tags are hard, I've only actually written like a chapter and a half of this but if I don't post anything then I'll never keep writing it.

“You're caught like a rat in a cage, old friend.”

“The only _rat_ around here is you, Megamind!”

“Ohoh, I am ever so _hurt_ , Metro _Mahn_. Your nuanced insults may have permanently damaged my delicate psyche.”

“As if it's possible to bruise your ego, villain. You know, even with how much you love your own mug, I would think a hall of mirrors would be a bit much. Isn't that more Carn-Evil's M.O., Megamind?”

“Now now, it's hardly a _hall_ , hero. You went to _shool_ , you know what a _hall_ looks like. You have the rare honor of seeing the inside of a mirrored great snub dodecicosidodecahedron. Not that you deserve it.”

“A- a great, snub do, dodah-” Metro Man quit while he was ahead, hating having to do so but suspecting that Megamind _wanted_ him to be the one stumbling through a pronunciation, for once. The villain had stunned him for a moment with some sort of massive flash-bang while they were over the rooftops in the warehouse district after being led on a merry chase. By the time his eyes had adjusted, the maniac had somehow managed to arrange a set of mirrors around him and sealed them perfectly, as if he had simply willed them into being while Metro Man's eyes were closed. He now floated in the very center of a genuinely dizzying configuration of mirrors that gave the illusion of stretching endlessly in all directions, infinite reflections of himself spinning off into the distance. Worse yet, the dome was very, very slowly rotating around him. It was unsettling, not that he'd let that on to the now-disembodied voice egging him on. “And why shouldn't I just smash my way out of your pretty little prison, fiend?”

“I think you know me well enough to know that this is no _ordinary_ mirrored glass around you, my muscle-brained nemesis.” Metro Man could practically _hear_ Megamind's nonchalant pacing, familiar as he was with that particular tone of voice. “I think you'll find that your so-called _super_ strength shall have no effect whatsoever here. This dodecicosidodecahedron is shatter-proof, shock resistant, and if vibration is stimulated with any sort of physical blow the shape would act as a-” he paused as if dumbing down the science, something he often did during these confrontations that never ceased to irritate the hero, “a _tuning fork,_ lets say, amplifying the vibration until even _your_ puny brain will turn to mush!” He ended on a growing cackle.

“Villain!” Metro Man cried, lifting his hand into a heroic, if useless, fist. He couldn't know if Megamind was bluffing without testing it, but he didn't relish the thought of being the ringer in some kind of enormous bell, not with super hearing like his. He'd have to figure some other way out.

The idea came rather quickly, before Megamind's amused laughter had even finished rattling off, as he caught his own righteously-angry blue eyes in one of the countless mirrored surfaces around him. His- of course! His laser vision! The first time he could remember using the power, he had accidentally melted his own bathroom mirror and the contents of the medicine cabinet behind, so he knew that reflective surfaces did nothing to deflect the beam. It was perfect! Melt a panel, charge out, snag the blue guy and haul him off before he even knew what hit him!

Geez, it almost seemed too simple. He couldn't believe Megamind had focused so much on his strength that his vision hadn't even been considered! Thank goodness the villain's enormous brain was so scattered...

  


Minion was pleased with the success of the Dodecicosidodecahedron of Doom so far (begging Sir to change the name to something... well, _pronounceable_ had been met with simple derision). The fireworks display of a flashbang had stumbled the hero quite admirably, and the brainbots had swarmed in from their nearby positions to seal the mirrored shape around him with almost beautifully precise choreography, leaving it supported and spinning a few feet above the roof by some sort of powerful and complicated magnet-based levitation field that Minion privately considered just a little bit overkill.

This might have been the best plot they had pulled without Miss Ritchi so far, despite how inauspiciously it had started. They hadn't had the chance to spring the plan themselves; they were only mid-setup with the brainbots, planting little distractions and traps for the proper chase they were supposed to have the next day when Metro Man's super-hearing or vision had apparently alerted him to their presence. Luckily, the dome itself had been the _first_ of the traps they had assembled, and after they had been interrupted, they led him on a short run-around and had him where they wanted him in short order. It was pity that no one would see it, though- Metro Man had interrupted them in the middle of the night, and without their HQ camerabots or their hack into Metro's TV stations at the ready, it was looking to be a private showdown.

Minion was sure that this one would at least _singe_ Metro Man. Once he thought to use his laser vision, the specially-designed 'glass' would take the beam and amplify it tenfold, then blast it right back the hero's face. Nothing nearly strong enough to kill him, of course, nothing ever was- but a reasonable slap to his ego, they were sure. This had taken _months_ of research on that particular power, and both Megamind and Minion had wound up taking a low-powered blast or two (Metro Man was kind enough not to try to kill the both of them, either, of course) over the course of the study. Megamind was positive that everything was perfect. The 'glass' of the 'hedron was perfectly tailored to do its job, and even Metro Man wasn't dumb enough to forget his own powers. The stage had been set- Megamind needed only cackle and banter until the hero caught on and did exactly what they wanted him to do.

Just one of the surfaces in the dome was a two-way mirror made of ordinary glass, indistinguishable from the rest from inside but perfect for allowing the two a decent view of how the hero was taking things by way of a brainbot's camerawork. From his position at their small monitor station at the very edge of the rooftop, Minion grinned at his Sir, posing and pacing dramatically nearby the trap as he laughed. Minion leaned to murmur into the communicator so his voice would only carry to Megamind himself, “I think he's got it, sir- ah, yes. His eyes are glowing. Get ready to-”

And in that moment everything went terribly, _horribly_ wrong.

The explosion knocked Minion's suit onto its back, the fish himself spinning out wildly in a daze as he struggled to process the sudden cacophony of aural and visual input, and the suit's temperature control also struggled to keep his environment from overheating.

His habitat was well built, though, so he recovered quickly, and once he could focus his eyes again he realized that if he hadn't been sheltered by the block of control panels in front of him, his condition would be _considerably_ worse. It only took another moment for Minion to remember where Megamind had so recently been standing, and one more to begin to panic-

“Sir? Sir!” He struggled to his feet, gripping the still-smoking panels for support until the servos in his legs readjusted enough to handle his weight, then frantically scanned the rooftop with his eyes. “Sir, are you alright?”

He saw Metro Man first, at the epicenter of the blast- suit singed, cape in tatters, _hair askew_ , and expression beyond dazed and into some sort of catatonic confusion. But he was otherwise as physically unharmed as ever, halfway sitting, halfway laying on his ass. He was perfectly still, his mouth open in a silent 'oh' of surprise, and he was surrounded by scattered rings of broken and heat-warped glass from his previous prison and the debris that had moments ago been that overcomplicated levitation device.

Minion staggered around the computers, almost tripping over the wrecked corpse of their poor camera-bot. He pulled the broken thing into his metal arms and it whirred weakly at him, but its arm tendrils were slack, its dome cracked and its one red eye unlit. He cradled it to his chest, calling out more and more frantically for his Sir until he finally, _finally_ saw a crumpled form, halfway to the other side of the roof, utterly still.

His mechanical legs couldn't move fast enough, groaning and hissing as he ran, mind racing. Megamind was so far away- _why_ was he so far? He had been close to the dome, so close, had the blast really swept him so far away? And why, _why_ wouldn't he answer when Minion called?

“Sir? Sir, please-” He stumbled to his knees by the collapsed alien, taking in the details before he risked trying to move him. He was on his stomach, cape (fireproof, thank god, thank _anyone_ ) draped unceremoniously over him and the right half of his face pressed against the rough rooftop, eyes closed. He remembered belatedly that Megamind wasn't in any of his battle suits, just his regular work suit; it was fireproof and durable, yes, but not at all meant for combat, not bullet- and concussion-proof as it would have been for an official showdown. Minion carefully started to lift the edge of the cape up to give himself a better view, and that was when he noticed the holes.

The cape, which had seemed intact at a casual glance, Minion now saw was thoroughly perforated, thin slits of varying sizes slashed through at random intervals. As Minion carefully tugged the offending fabric up, he realized with a sickening jolt that many of the holes along the thin man's back still glittered with glass, the cape effectively pinned into his skin.  
  
Minion could only guess how deep they went.

Megamind was breathing, at least, but shallowly. Minion sagged in relief, but it only lasted a moment as he saw the trickle of blood leaking from that massive blue head, where it must have struck the roof after his brief flight. Minion had gleaned more than his fair share of medical knowledge over the years, taking care of the wounds Megamind acquired through his losses and almost-wins, but all that knowledge was telling Minion right now was that he wasn't equipped to handle this. Forcing his growing sense of despair to shrink to something manageable, some sort of _plan_ he could focus on instead, he swam in a tiny, tight circle before rising to his feet and taking off running again, back towards where Metro Man was now mumbling to himself and sitting up more fully

He didn't waste any time, grabbing the huge man's shoulders and shaking once, quick, to get his attention before halfway shouting, “Wake up, get up, come on!”

Metro Man put a groggy hand to his forehead, then blinked blearily up at Minion before seeming to realize who he was. He batted the suit's metal hands away effortlessly, clearly fighting down his own disorientation as he floated to his feet. “M-Min'n,” he slurred, then cleared his throat. “The villain's Minion,” he corrected himself, voice only cracking once as he affected his heroic accent. Minion ignored him completely.

“There's no time for that this is _serious_ Mr Scott-” at that Metro Man blinked, focused more strongly; Megamind and his fish had known his identity since childhood, but neither of them ever, _ever_ called him on it, and it settled something cold in the pit of his stomach as Minion kept going, “Sir is r-really _really_ hurt, and you need to get him back to the prison _right now_.”

“Th... the prison? Blue's... where is he? What just _happened_ , little guy?”

“Over there! Now, quick!” Minion grabbed the hero's hand – Metro Man giddily noticed the busted bot nestled in the crook of Minion's other arm – and gave an impatient jerk with his whole tiny body, clearly indicating that the hero should carry him over. Metro Man was too baffled to do anything but comply, lifting them easily to where the villain lay, his dark cape visibly splotched with what could only be blood.

“Jeez, what the he-”

“No time! You have to fly him back to the prison, they know how to take care of him there, the Warden and the doc, they'll know what to do but you have to go _now_. The brainbots could get him there but I don't think they'll be fast enough and _you will be_ so _go_!” He punctuated his order with a shove, ineffectual as it was, and Metro Man was stunned enough to let himself stumble back. He'd never seen the little fish like this- but then, he'd never seen Megamind this way either. The guy was so good at avoiding actual injury that it was hard not to forget that he wasn't invulnerable too, sometimes.

After only a moment he leaned down by Megamind's side, trying to figure out how best to move him before Minion piped up again, his voice now beginning to waver, terror showing through. “There's glass, glass all in his back. And I'm pretty sure he h-hit his head. I don't know how badly he's hurt but I don't think you can carry him normally. Can- can you still-”

Metro Man answered with action, digging his hands into the concrete of the roof, quickly and carefully cracking the section that Megamind rested on out of the surrounding structure and lofting the makeshift not-quite-stretcher easily, gently into his arms. He glanced up, catching Minion's terrified eyes for a brief moment before deciding that he was losing precious time, then nodded and blasted off into the sky without another word.

Minion, fighting hard against the urge to collapse and weep, got to work. He commanded the other anxious brainbots waiting nearby in clipped, one-sentence orders, sending most across the roof as a proper cleanup team, removing the shattered glass, the twisted machinery, the blood.

A small swarm of them carried him down to street level, where the invisible car waited, idling in the dark. He slid into the driver's side, then gently tucked the one damaged brainbot into the passenger's seat, arranging it so it wouldn't slide around on the leather. He did a quick mental diagnostic as he did, noting that the bot's audio sensors were undamaged, and its internal workings were still sealed and protected despite the spiderweb crack in the dome- it was paralyzed and blind, unable to vocalize properly, and it had excessive cosmetic damage, but it would be fine with some new parts and a careful hand.

He recognized the chassis; the bot was as of yet unnamed, a rare survivor from a much older run of bots, but very steady and only recently refitted as a cambot as a reward for when the clever thing had spent half a kidnapping supporting their usual cambot after some stray shrapnel had wrecked its flight motors. It whirred again at Minion's touch, and he thought he heard a question in the noise.

“You'll be fine,” Minion answered quietly, then peeled away from the curb, the familiar action feeling almost unnatural. Without meaning to he vividly remembered _Punch it_ , and a wide, white grin. He shuddered, then set his own toothy mouth into a determined scowl, invisible tires squealing as he took a turn perhaps a bit too sharply and aimed the vehicle towards the prison.

Megamind would hopefully be secured in the infirmary by the time he got there, being treated by the only humans Minion knew he could actually trust with the incapacitated alien. He checked the clock on the center console and winced. 3:43. He should have thought of that earlier; the Warden would be home, sound asleep, and so would the doctor.

He lifted a hand to his communicator and fumbled his unsteady fingers at it for a moment before he pulled over entirely and finally managed to hit the proper switches to send the call.

It rang six times before the line clicked open to a brief, thick silence.

“... 'llo?” came the Warden's gruff voice after a moment, impatient and rough with sleep.

“Warden I'm very sorry to wake you,” Minion said, surprising himself with the urgent steadiness of his voice, “but you need to get to the prison right now. And call the doctor and make sure he gets down there too. I'm very sorry sir but it's an emergency.”

There was another moment of stony silence.

“Is this some sort of joke?”

“No, sir, I'm afraid not.”

“... Minion? Is that you?”

“Yes, sir. I'm afraid so.”

Minion heard a shuffling noise, then a couple quiet thumps.

“Tell me what happened to him.” The Warden's tone made it clear it was an order, but he still sounded raspy down the line. There were a few more thumps. Getting on his shoes, Minion hoped.

“An explosion. He was close, it threw him. There was shrapnel, a sort of glass. He also hit his head. He was unconscious,” Minion listed.

“What do you mean 'was,' Minion?”

The fish heard the quiet dread in the old man's voice, and quickly gasped out, “Yes- no, S- Metro Man went ahead with him, to the prison. They should already be there. You need to get there too. And the doc. And I'll be-” he cut himself off just short of _be there as soon as I can_.

“You'll be there, sneaking around however it is you two always do,” the Warden drawled down the line. Minion gaped a little- the Warden was rarely that candid. “Good. Look, kid, I gotta hang up if I'm gonna get a-hold of Doctor Karga and get there anytime soon.” He paused, leaving an unspoken question hanging between them, waiting for the fish to respond.

Minion took a deep breath, let it out slow. Knowing the Warden would be there helped immensely. “Yes, sir. Drive safely,” he answered. The Warden gave a gruff affirmative noise, then the line clicked dead. Minion switched his end of the communicator off as well, gripping the wheel as he sent the car flying forward again.

He was calmer, now. Rationally, he thought. Just consider the situation rationally. He still didn't even know how seriously Megamind was hurt. Really, it might not have been half as bad as it looked.

Or it might have been worse.

His metal fingers tightened on the steering wheel, leaving sharp rectangular dents.

There wasn't any traffic to dodge this early in the morning, and he made it to the outskirts of Metro in record time. The boxy prison loomed over the rural landscape like the fortress it was, but it only took the press of a few select buttons on the gleamingly complex dashboard for him to slip unnoticed through the gates to the employee lot. He saw Doctor Karga's shiny maroon SUV parked at an awkward diagonal in its usual spot as Minion pulled invisibly off into some unused, yellow-lined section of the asphalt. There- the hunk of roof Metro Man had flown off with lay discarded by the door, dark brown smears drying across it.

He killed the motor, dithering uncomfortably in the driver's seat as he tried to decide how best to continue his infiltration. The Warden's old blue car swerved by, distracting him for a moment, and he watched the Warden slam his door shut and half-run into the prison. Minion felt himself relax just slightly at that- with both the Warden and Dr. Karga in there taking care of Megamind, he had far less to worry about and he could focus on getting himself in instead.

It wasn't going to be _hard_ , per se, but it was certainly going to be _strange_. Getting Megamind out of the prison was the usual game- Minion getting himself _in_ had never been on the docket before. In fact, when Megamind recovered he was bound to be furious with the fish for risking coming here like this- he really should've just gone home and waited for word, but Minion couldn't stand the thought of the big empty lair right now. He needed to know Megamind was alright.

He began rifling through the glove compartment, checking for anything that might be useful: extra spikes and studs and a sewing kit in case of costume emergencies, a spare de-gun, a handful of ketchup packets from fast food joints – only the gun could possibly be of any use at the moment, and Minion already had one of his own. A prototype hologram generator, though- now, _that_ had potential. Megamind had been experimenting with disguises lately, after finding out the hard way that people were surprisingly likely to notice a human-sized version of their car's invisibility field. It wasn't quite perfect invisibility yet, and the distortion it created was much more obvious indoors, so a hologram disguise of someone who was supposed to be wherever they were trespassing became the obvious alternative. It was still a very early prototype; it was projected from a remote about the size and shape of a large walkie-talkie, and its capacity was limited to only one disguise at a time. It was only in the car because they had been procrastinating on putting it through some field tests for a few weeks now and they had forgotten it there. Minion turned it in his hands and flicked it on, watching as his massive metal hands were disguised as Megamind's slender leather-clad ones. He turned the device back off and shrugged. It would have to do.

Another few taps at the dashboard and the prison's security cameras aimed outside were stuck on loops of empty parking lot, and then he sat back and waited. After about a half hour a yawning young man parked and came strolling towards the guard station. Minion vaguely recognized from a previous breakout. His path to the front door took him right by the invisible car, and Minion had quite a bit of practice abducting. He whacked him with the Forget-Me-Stick through a rolled-down window, dragged him into the car and scanned him with the hologram projector. He snagged the unfortunate guard's badge and keys and then used his de-gun to dehydrate the unlucky man, shoving the cube into a storage compartment in his suit for the moment.

It actually wasn't very hard to get in, the man at the guard station seemed distracted already and didn't spare the disguised Minion more than a passing glance as he came through, making an immediate beeline for the infirmary. The other guards seemed spooked, and Minion recognized that particular tone of murmuring from the prisoners- the rumor mill was in full swing. He supposed that Megamind's sudden arrival must have stirred things up; a lot of commotion for this time of night, but even that seemed to be settling down by now.

He made it to the infirmary unhindered, followed the noises of havoc and finally spied that particular shade of blue on one of the infirmary beds. He could only see a sliver of Megamind through a set of privacy curtains that the Warden paced stiffly beside, glowering at the beige tiled floor.

Minion crept in when the Warden's back was turned, slipping behind another set of curtains where the overhead lights were off and another prisoner slept, his arms and legs strapped to the corners of the bed. Minion peeked out through the plastic to watch, realizing after a moment that Doctor Karga and a few others were in with Megamind while the Warden paced in his tight circle.

After what seemed like a short eternity that Minion measured by the breaths of the inmate on the bed next to him, Doctor Karga, a slim, dark skinned man only just beginning to grey at his temples, slipped out from behind the curtain and sighed at the Warden. “I swear that kid is incapable of getting into any sort of _normal_ trouble. He's stable for now, but that was closer a call than anything since that first time Metro Man dragged him in here by his ankle.”

The Warden seemed to deflate a bit at the news, tension diffusing, and Minion quietly did the same. “He's going to be okay, then?”

Karga shot him a brief look. “He _is_ stable, physically. I dealt with whatever that shrapnel was in his back- and believe me, he got lucky there. If it was any sort of _normal_ glass it would have been much more difficult to remove without just shattering them further in his wounds. They punctured pretty deeply, but they didn't happen to hit anywhere it would matter. One only barely missed his spine, but it did miss. He broke his wrist but that isn't a particularly big deal for him. Everything else is superficial, the smaller cuts and the scrapes on his face, except-” he paused his list, took a deep breath. “Everything else except for the fact that he hit his head pretty hard. I did what I could to keep it from swelling up but you know how little we actually understand about how his brain works. He might wake up with a concussion, maybe with a headache. Or he might not wake up. I have no way of knowing. If he _is_ going to wake up, it'll be in the next few hours. Now that his back is patched up his body should start that bizarre quick-repair thing that it does, and he usually wakes up about an hour or so into that process.”

Minion locked the controls of his suit so he didn't fidget himself apart, bit his lip to keep himself from spouting out all the questions he wanted to ask. Luckily the Warden seemed as keen to question the doctor as Minion was.

“So it's all down to how hard he hit his head?” He grumbled something Minion couldn't hear, but from the tiredly amused look the doctor gave him he assumed it was some curse or another. “Did Metro Man give you any useful information? Did he see it?”

Karga shrugged, ran a hand through his dark curls roughly. “Not to my knowledge. To be honest, he looked a little disheveled too. I almost wanted to tell him to sit the hell down and let me look at him for once, but it wouldn't have done any good anyway, and he was off like a shot as soon as I told him I had Blue here in hand. He seemed pretty relieved about it. The way he was out of here, I think he must've heard sirens off in the city or something.”

“Or he was feeling guilty and wanted to get away from Megamind as soon as he got _permission_ ,” the Warden grumbled. “ _Or_ he didn't like you seeing him ruffled. He didn't say anything useful at all?”

“Nothing beyond what you said Minion already told you. Explosion, glass, smacked his head.”

“And now what, we just- wait?”

Karga nodded. “Give it an hour, Jones. We'll know what we have to do from there.” He clapped a hand on the Warden's back, and they both spent a moment staring at the curtains that separated them from the blue villain.

The Warden shook off Karga's hand after a moment, clearly hesitating by the break in the curtains. Karga's dark eyes softened at that, and he quietly said, “You go in there and wait, I have to go over a few things with the nurses and even unconscious I don't particularly like leaving a supergenius like him alone in here. There's a chair by the bed. Shall I bring a glass of water back with me?”

The Warden gave Karga a look that meant he knew _exactly_ what the doctor was doing, but sighed and nodded, then brushed the curtain aside to slip in with his blue charge. Minion swam himself up a bit in his tank for a better look as his view was finally unobstructed, just for a moment.

Megamind looked- pale, for starters, a much lighter blue than he was supposed to be, almost grey, especially at the lips, and the skin around his eyes looked darkened and bruised. There was a bandage across his forehead and smaller ones on his cheek, on those shallow scrapes that had bled onto the pavement. There was a thin, pale patterned sheet over his body from the shoulders down, so Minion couldn't even see the edges of the bandages that surely covered his back.

“Goddammit, Blue,” the Warden murmured as he sat by the bed, and the softness in his voice made Minion feel suddenly like he was intruding. “One of these days you aren't gonna be this lucky, and _we'll_ be-” he swallowed whatever he was going to say, coughed slightly. “Supervillains don't get happy endings, kid.”

And that made Minion's mind go very, very still.

Karga came back after a few minutes with a glass of water and stood by the Warden, the two of them casually and quietly discussing their families as Minion dealt with status reports from the brainbots, sending out a few brief instructions. Karga got sick of standing and fetched his own chair, then settled down with the Warden, the two of them (and Minion, silent in the dark at their back) maintaining their vigil.

For the next two hours Doctor Karga kept up a low chatter about random, pointless topics while the Warden sat and stared at the motionless figure on the bed. The Doctor rambled around the budget for the prison's medical facilities, botany he had studied as a hobby in college, the tea and candies his aunt kept sending him in the mail, anything that seemed to spring to his mind, and Minion couldn't tell for the life of him if the Warden was hearing a single word.

The eventual sound of rustling sheets and a low groan startled all three of them, and Minion again peered through the curtains to see Megamind's head lolling towards the Warden and Karga, his eyes open in vivid green slits against so much blue.

“I'd appreciate it,” he said, “if you would quit that inane soliloquy about your phenomenally pedestrian life before you _bore_ me to death.”

Karga stood and immediately went back into doctor mode, pulling out a tiny flashlight and checking Megamind's pupils while the alien griped at him and Minion tried not to sag at the familiarity.

After a thorough examination (during which Megamind elected to complain nonstop), Karga declared him to be on the mend, grumbling as always about his patient's absurd alien physiology.

“Of course I'm _fine_ ,” he said, rolling his eyes. “ _Highly_ superior alien species, rememb-ah!” he interrupted his own attempt to sit up, hissing in pain and sinking back to the mattress, raising his hand to brush his fingertips against the bandages on his head. “Ah. Yes. And you said- my back as well?” Karga nodded and Megamind gave an exasperated sigh, flicked his hand in a dismissive way. “Tch. Nothing serious.”

“You need to know your limits, Megamind,” the Warden warned, still sitting with his arms crossed and staring blandly at some point across the room.

“This isn't just cuts-and-bruises, Blue,” Karga cut in before Megamind could do more than roll his eyes. “If it weren't for your friends acting quick you'd probably be dead.”

Megamind scoffed. “ _Friends_? I'm beginning to wonder about this poten _shule_ brain damage after all.”

“Minion made sure we'd be here when you came in-”

“Well _obviously_ , but your use of the plural is still idiotic.”

“And Metro Man made sure you got here before you bled out.”

Megamind cackled and then immediately devolved to coughing. When he managed to control his breathing again he schooled his expression into something utterly derisive. “Now... my good doctor, you _do_ realize that when I refer to Mister Goody-Two-Shoes as my 'old friend,' I'm not exactly being _sincere_.”

Karga shrugged. “Either way, he got you here alive.”

“His fault I'm here anyway,” he murmured. “Interfering moron.”

“ _He_ isn't forcing you to pull these stupid stunts!” the Warden barked, and Megamind stared at him, looking a bit dazed again.

He shrugged after a moment, wincing through the motion but not quite seeming to care. “This 'stupid stunt' might just have worked,” he teased. “Another almost win! Despite the pain, I'd say this still counts as one.” He chuckled lowly.

Still hiding behind the curtain, Minion frowned at that. Even having disheveled the hero, it hadn't for a moment felt like a victory to him.

“Whatever you say, Blue,” Karga patronized, leaning over the bed and – Megamind clearly didn't notice until it was too late – deftly sticking him with a needle before he could protest. “You know damn well being passed out doesn't count as sleep,” Karga explained as Megamind's mouth opened in a weak snarl, “and you won't sleep on your own. Hell, you'll probably try to escape practically before you're even good to walk.”

“Pff- _try_ to escape-” he muttered.

“You'll get over it,” Karga interrupted. “Now, just go to sleep, will you? You can insult our intelligence in the morning.”

“I'm sure neither of your IQ's will improve by then...” the alien mumbled, eyelids already drooping.

“Exactly,” he assured him wryly.

“Fine, fine... g'night M'nin...”

Karga grinned wildly at that, shaking his head as Megamind shut his eyes with a sigh. The two men waited a few minutes to be sure, then Karga nodded and led the Warden out, flicking the lights off as they went and resuming some quiet conversation once they left the room.

Minion waited a while himself, not wanting to stumble out when the Warden might still be keeping watch outside, but when perhaps ten minutes had passed with no noise or other indication of supervision, Minion slipped out from behind the curtain finally, turning off the disguise watch with a sigh of relief. He tiptoed as best he could to the side of Megamind's bed, leaning closer to examine him.

“Sir,” he whispered, but Megamind's face didn't change at all, his slow breathing remained even. “Sir, I think you should stay here until you're better,” he continued anyway. “You really scared me this time.” He bit his lip, glanced around the boring, sterile room warily. “And... it was kind of our fault this time. We miscalculated, and it almost killed you. You...” he sighed. “I'm supposed to look after you, Sir, but- how am I supposed to do that...? Being a supervillain is dangerous, and...”

The sound of clipped footsteps interrupted him, and Minion flicked the disguise watch back on quickly. “I'll initiate one of the escape plans once you're better, Sir,” he whispered, turning and slipping back behind the other set of curtains one more time just as the Warden walked in with a steaming cup of coffee. He glanced around for a moment as if he had heard something, then shook his head and went to sit back down next to Megamind's bed.

Minion slipped out behind his back, getting one last glimpse of his friend before heading out of the prison and back towards home.

There was a lot of dark, empty silence to think in, the next few weeks alone.

  



End file.
